shaken, not stirred

I was online tonight, joining my guildmates for a run through the WoW Karazhan instance, when it felt as though something had slammed--hard--into the wall of my 9th floor hotel room in Monterey. It took about 15 seconds for me to realize that the repeated shakes and shudders weren't from a rude neighbor, or a construction crew working late...they were from an earthquake.

According to the USGS, it was a magnitude 5.6 earthquake, in fact, which is non-trivial, but also typically not enough to result in major damage. The hotel swayed like crazy, which it's supposed to do, but nothing broke, and the front desk said there was no need to leave the building.

The whole thing was over in 30 seconds, but it's taken a couple of hours for my adrenaline levels to subside, and I'm still a little on edge. It doesn't help to read the news coverage, which indicates that there's a chance that this could lead to a larger earthquake before I leave for the relative safety of the east coast. I'll happily take an ice storm or a blizzard over a wildfire or an earthquake any day.